Cost effective analysis of Tresiba for Types 1 & 2 diabetes.- Novo Nordisk

A new analysis of real-world data has shown that switching to Tresiba (insulin degludec) is highly cost-effective and cost-saving for the treatment of type 1 and type 2 diabetes, respectively. The analysis was presented at the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR 2017) 20th Annual European Congress. Tresiba remained cost-effective even after excluding key benefits associated with switching to Tresiba such as reductions in hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar levels) and the use of health system resources in a calculation based on a treatment period of one year. When estimating the lifetime cost of diabetes, cost savings were even greater.These data build on previously reported real-world evidence which found that switching to Tresiba from other basal insulins, mainly insulin glargine U100 and insulin detemir, provides significant reductions in blood glucose levels, as well as lowering the rates of potentially dangerous severe hypoglycaemic episodes by 92% in people with type 2 diabetes and by 85% in people with type 1 diabetes.

About the analysis- This new analysis was based on an Italian sub-population of the EU-TREAT (EUropean TREsiba AudiT) study, which is a European, multicentre, real-world evidence study with 2,550 people, investigating the effect of switching to Tresiba from another basal insulin in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Cost-effectiveness was evaluated based on change in hypoglycaemia rates, basal and prandial insulin dose, and body weight at 6 months after switching to Tresiba in 397 people with type 1 and 153 people with type 2 diabetes from Italy. Cost-effectiveness models evaluated the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) for cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY)1 and enable comparisons to be made across treatments and therapy areas.